Earlier rumours that the Volkswagen Group was planning to divest Lamborghini gained new traction this week following reports that a consortium has made an offer of 7,5 billion euro (R127 billion) for the Italian supercar brand.
Autocar reported on Tuesday that the Quantum Group AG, which consists of investment companies from the UK and Switzerland, had sent a letter of intent to the German parent company, which set out various terms for the purchase of Lamborghini.
However, when approached for comment by Reuters, a spokesperson for Audi (which is currently the custodian of Lamborghini) denied these reports. “This is not the subject of any discussion within the group. No, Lamborghini is not for sale,” the spokesperson stated. The news agency did not manage to draw commentary from the Quantum Group.
The Autocar article had stated that the Quantum Group had a vision of turning Lamborghini into a “spearhead for innovation by consistently implementing new clean drivetrain technologies”. It also reported that the consortium wanted to enter into a five-year agreement with Audi, which would see the brands sharing electric vehicle technology among other intellectual property. Which means that under such an arrangement, Lamborghinis would not necessarily lose their current Audi flavour.
Lamborghini recently announced that it would be making the biggest investment in its 58-year history to electrify its range of cars and launch a fully-electric model in the second half of the decade.
The supercar maker was founded in 1963 by Ferruccio Lamborghini, a previous tractor manufacturer who wanted to build the best sports cars in the world, allegedly after an argument with Enzo Ferrari about the merits of the former man’s sports cars.
The company was sold to Chrysler in 1987 and to Volkswagen in 1998.